Secret (Betrothed #9) - Penelope Sky Page 0,77

hard jawline. He didn’t offer me a drink. He didn’t even offer me his gaze.

This conversation was going to suuuuck.

He finally turned to me, looking at me with such rage he could barely keep it inside.

I took a deep breath, hating that look.

“You haven’t been home in a while. I can only assume that means one thing…”

My eyes narrowed. “He could barely walk, Damien. Yes, I’ve been home with him, taking care of him, because he looked like you used him as a fucking punching bag.”

“Which he deserved…unless you’re going to rewrite history.”

I shook my head. “How can you have so much hatred inside that heart?”

“It’s pretty easy,” he said unapologetically. “When a man tries to kill my father, takes my future wife, lies to my sister…it comes pretty naturally. How can you have so much stupidity in your heart?”

I brushed off the insult even though it was difficult. “Damien, I love him.” I said the words out loud, feeling the same pain I felt the first time I admitted it. “There’s nothing I can do about that. I can’t just turn it off. Trust me, I’ve tried. I need you to let this go. I need you to settle this feud once and for all.”

He clenched his jaw like I’d just asked for a kidney.

“Not for him. But for me.” I placed my hand over my heart. “You beat him to within an inch of his life. He’s been punished enough. You have no idea how weak he is.”

“He’s not weak enough if he’s not in the grave.”

I dropped my hand back to the table. “Damien.”

He looked out the window again.

“Look at me,” I said gently, needing my brother to be himself, not this violent dictator.

He resisted for a while, like he needed a few seconds to calm himself before he turned back to me.

“I’m your sister, and I love you. I love you so much.”

He sighed quietly.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do this for me unless it was important to me. I never ask you for anything, Damien. You offered to buy me a house, and I said no. My love for him doesn’t change my loyalty to you or Dad. I need you to drop this vendetta forever…for me.”

He bowed his head, rubbing his temple like he had a migraine.

“Please…”

He closed his eyes for a few seconds.

“Heath would never hurt you, as he’s proven. So, it’s not even a fair fight. It’s just murder.”

He lifted his chin and looked at me.

“For me. Do this for me.” I would get on my knees and beg if I had to. I didn’t want Heath to ever be in pain again, to ever have to deal with my brother’s wrath when he couldn’t defend himself. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I know how much you love me too.”

He raised his hand slightly to quiet me, and then he dropped it again. “Alright.”

I couldn’t believe he said yes. “Oh my god… Thank you.” Tears welled in my eyes because I’d finally fixed everything. It would take time for us to move on from this, probably years, but it was a start. We had peace. Finally.

He crossed his arms over his chest as he slouched against the chair. “I won’t come after him. I won’t hurt him. I won’t do anything to him.”

Music to my ears.

“But I want nothing to do with him.”

“Heath isn’t gonna make you start paying—”

“Not what I meant,” he said coldly. “You asked me to drop my vendetta. Fine. But don’t expect me to like him. Don’t expect me to approve of him for you. Because I don’t. And Dad won’t either.”

“He has more of an open mind than you do—”

“Yes. He wouldn’t want to kill anyone. He probably wouldn’t execute Heath, despite what he did. But that doesn’t mean he would want his only daughter to be with the guy who’s responsible for so much turmoil in this family. You think he’d want his daughter to be with the fucking Skull King?” he asked incredulously. “You’re living in an alternate reality if you think that’s going to happen, Catalina.”

All the joy left my body as my gaze dropped.

“I’m never going to shake his hand. I’ll never ask about him. When we’re together, I don’t want you even mentioning him. You can take away my vendetta, but you can never change the way I feel about him. Now, if you love me—” he pointed to his chest “—you won’t be with someone I have this much of a problem with, someone who’s hurt me.”

I closed my eyes, pained.

“How do you really see this working?” he asked. “You’re gonna have a life with him? Completely separate for your family? Do you expect him to ask Dad’s permission to marry you? And do you expect Dad to give you the answer you want to hear?”

New tears emerged, but for a different reason.

“You deserve better than him. So much better.”

“So…you’re just going to ostracize me from the family? I have to choose—him or my family?”

He was quiet for a long time, staring at me with a cold gaze. “I would never cut you out of my life—for any reason. You’re my sister. But he’ll never be welcome at Christmas, dinners, birthday parties. If you have kids with him, I’ll spend time with them because they’re my nieces and nephews, but I’ll never spend time with their father. And you can’t change the way I feel about that, Catalina.”

I’d never imagined a future with Heath. My mind hadn’t even entertained the idea. “Damien, I never said I was going to marry the guy—”

“Then why would you risk everything to be with him?” he countered.

I was speechless.

“Why would you have a relationship with someone that goes against everything you believe in if there wasn’t an endgame?”

“I just…want to be with him. And see where it goes…”

“Well, it can never go anywhere.”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Maybe I was living in a false reality.

He leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “You can see whoever you want. You’re a grown woman who can make her own decisions. If you want to be with him, I won’t stop you. But you will never really be happy. Don’t you see that?”

Not until now.

He continued to watch me, his eyes softening when he saw the devastated look on my face. “You’re so smart. You’re so beautiful. You’re so damn perfect. You can have any man you want. So why want him?”

I finally forced myself out of the painful haze. “He’s the only man I’ll ever love…”

“I think you’re too young to say something like that.”

I considered telling him about the prophecy, but that seemed moot. She’d said he would always be an enemy to my family…and that was true. I could be with him for the rest of my life, but it would change my relationship with my family, pull me away from them. Heath would never be an addition to our family, always an outsider. We would be broken…forever. That wasn’t what I wanted.

I wanted a husband who could bring us closer together. I wanted a husband who could be friends with my brother. I wanted a husband who would call my father Dad. I wanted…more.

I would never fall deeply in love with someone else, never have this unbelievable connection with anyone else, but was that enough to lose everything else? Lust would fade as our bodies aged.

What would we be left with?

Damien reached across the table and rested his hand on mine. “I’m not trying to hurt you. You know I would do anything to make you happy. I just want you to understand what you’re signing up for. If I could feel differently about him, I would, because I would do anything for you. But…I just can’t. It’s not possible.”

I stared at our joined hands, tears slowly dripping down my cheeks.

“I’m sorry…”

“I know you are,” I whispered.

He placed his other hand on mine, surrounding my hand with both of his. Then he held it there, his head slightly bowed. “You can’t choose who you love, so I know this is hard. But you also can’t choose who you hate.”

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